Method and apparatus for providing a work flow web application that receives image data via a web browser and exports the image data to a document processing server

Abstract

An improved image processing system is provided which receives image data at a computer and transfers that image data to a work flow server for image processing and document distribution. The system uses a work flow web application computer program that receives image data from a scanner, transfers that image data via a native interface or a driver on a client computer to a browser on the client computer, and then sends the data to a network document distribution server which is addressed from the client computer using URL's.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates generally to image and document processing equipment and is particularly directed to a system of the type that receives image data at a computer and transfers that image data to a work flow server (WFS) for image processing and document distribution. The invention is specifically disclosed as a work flow web application (WFWA) that receives image data from a scanner, transfers that image data via a native interface or a driver on a client computer to a browser on the client computer, and then sends the data to a network document distribution server, which is addressed using URL's. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] In conventional systems, there are many optical image scanners, AIO (All-In-One) devices, and other types of imaging devices that are connected to client personal computers (PCs) via local connections such as USB ports, parallel ports, serial ports, etc., or via network connections such as IP ports or LAN ports. Such de...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009] Accordingly, it is an advantage of the present invention to acquire image data from an image source and upload that image data to a client computer, then use a web browser to further upload the image data to a network document distribution server, under the control of a work flow web application computer program.

[0010] It is another advantage of the present invention to provide a client computer with a work flow web application computer program, a standard web browser, an image-acquiring device driver, and a software interface module that allows the image driver to communicate with the browser, and after acquiring an image, to transfer the image data to a network document distribution server using one or more URL addresses.

[0011] It is yet another advantage of the present invention to acquire image data from an image source and upload that image data to a client computer, then use a web browser to further upload the image data to a network document distribution server, under the control of a work flow web application computer program that is configurable by a network administrator to allow multiple users to have different views of the work flow web application computer program at different client computers.

[0012] It is still another advantage of the present invention to acquire image data from an image source and upload that image data to a client computer, then use a web browser to further upload the image data to a network document distribution or work flow server under the control of a work flow web application computer program that allows the user to preview the scanned image data at one point in the process flow, later allows the user to have image processing performed by the network document distribution server, and at a further point in the process flow, allows the user to preview the processed image data.

[0013] It is a further advantage of the present invention to provide a client computer with a work flow web application computer program, a standard web browser, and a network document distribution server over a computer network, match up a list of available image drivers on the client computer to a list of supported devices by the network document distribution server, and then use an available image-acquiring device driver and a software interface module that allows the image driver to communicate with the browser to acquire an image from a supported image sourcing device and transfer the image data using one or more URL addresses to the network document distribution server.

[0014] To achieve the foregoing and other advantages, and in accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a networked system is provided, which comprises: (a) a work flow server that is in communication with a computer network, the work flow server having a first processing circuit and a first memory circuit and containing first computer executable code; (b) a client computer that is in communication with the work flow server over the computer network, the client computer having a second processing circuit and a second memory circuit and containing second computer executable code; and (c) an image sourcing device that is in communication with the client computer, wherein the second computer executable code includes: (i) a web browser that is in communication with the work flow server over the computer network; (ii) an image device driver that is in communication with the image sourcing device; and (iii) a software interface module that interfaces between the web browser and the image device driver.

Problems solved by technology

However, at this time, there are no applications that can acquire images from these devices through client PCs, and then feed the image data into a work flow server.

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